"gay people can't marry" isn't even true; AIUI there are already several countries where same-sex partners can get married. It's definitely starting to happen.
Mind you I don't have quite so much hope for multi-partner civil marriages, but it would be nice if people in those groupings had the same rights.
To be honest the legal rights shouldn't be anything to do with the relationship. It should be possible for people to grant inheritance, visiting rights in hospital, next-of-kin status, guardian-of-child status, receipt of life insurance benefits, and so on and so forth, to whoever (and whatever number of people) they deem appropriate -- partner(s), family, housemates, friends, whatever. (Some of these things are already possible, just more of a hassle to sort out if you're not married.)
IMHO the nature of the relationship(s) should be up to the individual(s) to work out; the nature of the ceremony likewise. To some extent this is already practically (if not theoretically) true -- the state doesn't actually intervene in the nature of your relationship, I'm certainly not going to get my marriage licence taken away from me for having other concurrent relationships; and a lot of the ceremony is customisable whether you go for a religious ceremony or a civil one.
Anyway, just my 0.02p's worth. Feel free to ignore it.
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Date: Wednesday, 19 February 2003 10:10 am (UTC)"gay people can't marry" isn't even true; AIUI there are already several countries where same-sex partners can get married. It's definitely starting to happen.
Mind you I don't have quite so much hope for multi-partner civil marriages, but it would be nice if people in those groupings had the same rights.
To be honest the legal rights shouldn't be anything to do with the relationship. It should be possible for people to grant inheritance, visiting rights in hospital, next-of-kin status, guardian-of-child status, receipt of life insurance benefits, and so on and so forth, to whoever (and whatever number of people) they deem appropriate -- partner(s), family, housemates, friends, whatever. (Some of these things are already possible, just more of a hassle to sort out if you're not married.)
IMHO the nature of the relationship(s) should be up to the individual(s) to work out; the nature of the ceremony likewise. To some extent this is already practically (if not theoretically) true -- the state doesn't actually intervene in the nature of your relationship, I'm certainly not going to get my marriage licence taken away from me for having other concurrent relationships; and a lot of the ceremony is customisable whether you go for a religious ceremony or a civil one.
Anyway, just my 0.02p's worth. Feel free to ignore it.